Enough about brushes, let’s check out one briefly product now! This is the Maybelline Express Brow Satin Duo, in the shade 02/Medium Brown!
Ah, finally, I get to try this out! I’ve been waiting with bated breath! This was a hot-off-the-press new product when I first bought it, and I couldn’t resist buying it because it’s not just an eyebrow pencil. It’s not even an eyebrow powder – it's both! Yup! 2-in-1! And since I am a fan of both eyebrow pencils and eyebrow powders, this was made for me to try it out. I waited for BIPA to have 30% off makeup as part of their weekend promo and, after a lot of patient waiting, my patience was rewarded: I managed to get one of these odd and interesting new brow products into my hands! ‘Medium Brown’ seemed like a safe bet for my hair colour, not too dark nor too light. Having used a LOT of brow pencils and some brow powders, will Maybelline’s take on both impress me or leave me with a sour feeling in my mouth? Please, please, please let it be the former! But there is only one way to find out and I am itching to see it in action – so let’s go!
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It’s a bit confusing sometimes; I have had times where I tried to open them the opposite way by accident because it’s easy to forget which side is the powder and which is the pencil.
Luckily, they made sure to make each side a different shape: the pencil has a flat-top cap, while the powder has a rounded cap. It doesn’t state anywhere which side is which, which would have helped a lot. Overall, I am happy with the build quality. It feels robust yet lightweight, and it seems to be built well. Both of the caps close very tightly, as well.
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Ingredients: vitamin E and glycerine for nourishment in both the pencil and the powder, though at the very end of the lists. Hey – still better than nothing! Both sides have a very faint scent; the pencil smells a bit waxy and a tiny bit plasticy. The powder itself doesn’t have any scent to it but the sponge smells a bit weird. Like, it kind of stinks a little but sponges are known to have that kind of smell anyways. The expiration date is 24 months after opening; I assume this goes for both the pencil and the powder.
As you might have gathered by now, with this being a duo brow product, it has two applicators that are each quite different from one another.
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I do wish it was more robust, though. Idk, I always feel like the lead is going to fall out any minute. Another not-too-great thing is that the lead doesn’t really stay in the same position, it keeps going back into the base so you have to retract it again and again. This gets annoying fast. Anyways, enough about the mechanism – onto the lead itself! This is a teardrop-shaped lead, which... I never fully understood why this is superior to just “normal” shaped leads. If anything, this is actually LESS precise as the wide end prevents you from drawing fine lines?? I would absolutely prefer to have a typical lead shape, but this one isn’t that horrible; it is just a tad more finicky to use. You have to angle it precisely to draw a sharp tail, although the wide end does help with drawing a good inner corner of the brows. So, eh, could be worse, I guess.
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The sponge is super soft; even when pressing down with it, it never feels hard or sharp or uncomfortable. However, what puzzles me is its mechanism: it has a pumping mechanism that does... something??? I am not entirely sure whether this pumps the powder into the sponge or what, but I instinctively pump it while I am applying the powder. Should I be doing this??? Actually, there seems to be a sponge loaded with powder inside the cap so perhaps the pumping is to saturate the main sponge with the pigment from the smaller one? This is all so confusing to me. The sponge is pretty good at its job; it is the formula of the powder that causes problems, and the sponge can only help so much. The sponge is surprisingly durable as well; from the start all the way to the end of the testing (which ended prematurely, you’ll see why soon), the sponge stayed in literally perfect condition. And it doesn’t feel wobbly. Seems like this half is the better built one.
Not the most beginner-friendly applicators, either one of these, I must say. But once you get the hang of using them, applying the brow product well becomes easier.
In order to describe the formula, it really ought to be broken down into the pencil and powder side individually.
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I feel like the pencil is almost the ideal amount of creamy while still having that bit of waxiness that helps it grip the skin and brow hairs.
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Well, this seems to set pretty quickly? I think? It can still be smudged hours later, but it feels like it has set after about a minute or two. This isn’t a pomade, so no point expecting it to be so set that it won’t budge; that said, it is set enough for my tastes. It stays locked in place the whole day, and brows don’t become unruly by the end of the day. That’s if you can even see brow hairs haha!
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And with how it frames my face once I am done. And I mean it is either 0 or a 100; not even a spoolie can comb through it and blend it out or soften it. Full beat – everytime! And I love it! Especially in the colder months... mmm, it is just so fricking awesome how pigmented my brows are with this on! Just, again, be very, very careful how you use it!
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| The shades available (there may or may not be one more that isn't pictured) Source: www.maybelline.com |
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The powder sponge is not entirely beginner-friendly, though the pencil is easy enough to use.
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It is most definitely a slightly older, ‘dated’ kind of look, if that makes sense; like, this result takes me back to like 2016 Instagram brows, though far less extreme here. Every bit as polished, though! So yeah, sometimes way too intense and comically blunt and blocky, but it’s not that bad. I adore how sharp the brow outline is! Few pencils give me quite this level of sharpness. Even though I cannot see the individual hairs, which adds to this sometimes comical appearance. It looks like my brows have been AI smoothed out. But nope, that’s how they look IRL as well.
Even if it’s 35+ °C! Awesome! Just wish the powder stayed in better condition...
After a whole day of wearing this, you might want to remove it and, luckily, this is an easy task. Even just using micellar water does the trick, no excessive rubbing needed! However, just to make things easier, I would suggest using a specialised remover instead. That removes the pencil/powder in a couple of seconds and saves the brow hairs from falling out from rubbing. But, as I said, even just micellar water will remove it without causing much damage to the hairs.
I managed to somehow make my brows presentable, but it shouldn’t have come to this. Either use less powder or make the pencil lead longer. And it really sucks because the pencil is what’s best about this product... hrmph. Seriously, like wth? This would NEVER last a month if you used it everyday – and, remember, it has a much higher price point compared to, say, MUA or Essence or Catrice. So what’s the solution? Buy a new pencil every week? Not a good solution, eh? But at least it is great in quality, so I am still happy with it overall, though this pisses me off.
In conclusion, this is actually a pretty great eyebrow product ngl! A bit weird and kooky but really, really good! I love how it’s a duo brow product: you have the pencil on one side and the powder on the other so you can choose which of two – or both – to use. However, I must say that the pencil is vastly superior to the powder – that's not to say that the powder sucks, it’s just not as good as the pencil. It isn’t amazingly pigmented, it ends up looking way too smudgy way too easily and it is just a bit of a hassle to use. Frankly, I am still unsure how exactly I should use it – and I’ve used up the entire bloody product! Why I was able to use it up is another issue but I’ll come to that later. For now, just know that there is a discrepancy in the amount of product for the powder and the pencil. Put a pin in this. Anyways, the powder does a fabulous job of blending out the pencil and making it look... well... far less comically blunt. However, I still regularly notice that there are spots where you can see the lines between the pencil and the powder unblended together. And trust me, I tried to blend them together, but I couldn’t lose the awesome definition the pencil gave me. The formula of the powder is so nice and silky though! But it’s not quite as long-lasting as the pencil; also, it is very slightly lighter in colour which should make for a great gradient buuut... yeah, that’s not exactly what happens. I also don’t know how to feel about the weird domed sponge; the pointy tip is nice and allows you to be at least somewhat precise but... idk, I just feel meh about it. And that’s such a shame because this was what made this product special. The pencil, on the other hand? Oh this is one hella good pencil! Not without flaws – far from that – but it is much easier to use than the sponge and gives a better result in my opinion. No need to wreck your head trying to deduce whether you should pump the sponge or not, here, you just draw on the shape as you would with any other pencil. The trick is that the lead is teardrop-shaped, which, according to Maybelline at least, should give you more natural results. However, what I found was that the thick end of the lead makes it hard to draw very precise, sharp lines because it is simply too large and too round. After all, you need to be able to make hair-like thin strokes, and such a thick lead is simply unable to achieve that. But, with a bit of practice, you can make extremely mega defined brows from the inner corner to the very tip of the tail. The formula of the pencil is super smooth and just enough waxy so that it sticks to hairs and the skin without becoming a smudgy mess. But that waxiness comes at a cost: it’s really fricking hard – maybe even impossible? - to make your brows look natural. It’s because the pencil doesn’t blend very easily so it’s mostly “how you draw it, that’s how it’ll be”. I don’t usually mind this, but here... oh man, brows look hilariously sharp. Like comical! Not quite sharpie-level, but... man, it is getting close to that! Still, I am in LOVE with how defined my brows are! Yes! This is exactly what I am looking for in brow products, none of that “natural fluffy brows” nonsense; give me luxurious, full glam brows every day! Oh, and I’d be remiss not to mention just how awesome this colour is! It’s a warmer toned brown, but not enough that it looks super toasty. Instead, it is mostly neutral-toned, which makes it a great choice for brunettes with slightly mousey-toned hair like me. Not the perfect match for me, but close enough! And it lasts and lasts and lasts! It’s pretty much sweat-proof and mostly life-proof as well, unlike the powder. I just wish there wasn’t one glaring issue at hand here... this is where I mention how the amount of product for the pencil side is shamefully little. Because that’s truly what it is – shameful. Look, without any discounts, you are looking at ~10-ish eur for this product... so why does the powder outlast the pencil literally double the time? The pencil runs out SO QUICKLY, it is actually maddening. I was planning on making a swatch of the pencil alone and the powder alone but, the previous time I was doing my makeup, I went to do my brows and, well great, the lead was completely empty... just great. It catches you off guard so easily, especially because there is still plenty of powder to go around, so you might think: “oh, I’ve got enough pencil left”... when that is not at all the case. Ugh, I didn’t want to end on this kind of note, but this is a serious problem. I would highly advise you to try and find some decent discount for this product because there is simply not enough of it to warrant its full price. But on sale? *Chef’s kiss!* Like, this is objectively a great product, no doubt about that. If only there was a liiiitle bit more pencil, I’d be as happy as could be! But I cannot ignore this problem. What I can do, though, is give this product my recommendation – if you find it on a deep discount! It’s awesome! I’ve loved using it, despite all the trickiness with the powder and the lead being a weird shape. Just look at the brows in pictures here – that should be evidence enough that this is a great eyebrow product, small size notwithstanding! So yup, I am very happy I tried it out! I think I may even get a replacement one...
Rating: 7/10
Would buy again? YES
